


Aut Vincere Aut Mori

by Shenanigans



Category: DCU
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-03
Updated: 2013-04-03
Packaged: 2017-12-07 09:46:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/747098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shenanigans/pseuds/Shenanigans
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Luthor wants an heir.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aut Vincere Aut Mori

It had started as a dream shared in whispered amber colored words on the pillow between himself and his wife. He’d card his fingers into the strands of her hair, thumb light as it traced over the curve of her brow. She’d wrinkle her nose at the names he supplied and push a pale freckled knee between his thigh as she tucked close, like a teacup settling into its saucer. He would smile into each kiss, soft and sacred in memory.

People thought it was the feelings of beatings that had changed him. They didn’t understand it was the ones soft as kisses in the morning.

The lights in the lab were a strange pulsing red glow that echoed the flushing fast thrum of bass that rattled through in time with his heartbeat. Westfield had babbled, excited and wide eyed about gestational periods and the usefulness of sound and color to keep the creation calm. Lex had pushed his fingers against the tube’s glass, his eyes the only reflection that he could make out over the small form.

“This one’s skin hasn’t turned to ash as the others, Sir,” Westfield continued, voice proud like a new father. “The human DNA is stabilizing the Kryptonian.”

Lex hadn’t been listening. He’d done the research himself and made the carefully placed suggestions to lead the man to this idea. “My boy,” he whispered, letting himself imagine the curl of budding fingers in the solution.

Lillian had laughed so loud other tables would look at them when they dined, but Lex didn’t care. She was all he saw. He would walk the long halls in the facility when there was no one there but the somnolent security mesmerized by the monitors. He’d stand in front of the tube, watching the boy- of course it was a boy. He was maybe three in relative time, enhanced growth pushing him past the turbulent years of learning as the displays in front of his eyes raced through the knowledge he would need. Lex paused the interface, sliding the cube of information into the settled space with a quiet click.

Her laugh, caught and looping with the brilliant white of her crooked smile echoed from behind the glass, warped by the solution he was suspended in. Lex settled into the chair, sharing this moment. Sharing this knife sharp soft secret with his son.

“We aren’t naming him Lionel,” Lillian had said matter of factly around a mouth full of granola. She wrinkled her nose and threw him a scathing look, snorting indelicately. “That’s just asking for him to be a horrible person.”

“My father’s name wa-“ He was cut off by a stern pointed spoon as she widened her eyes at him.

“Exactly.”

Lex smiled, clearing his throat as he watched the ten year old form float and twitch in dreams. He was black haired and coltishly built, stretching awkwardly into his teens as the feed played on. “Aut vincere aut mori,” he breathed, voice quiet as he stood, circling the tube as Lillian played in front of those sightless but seeing eyes. “That’s how I was raised. To conquer or die.”

He spoke to the room, uncaring that the water wouldn’t let the words through, only the muffled warm sound. He was telling bed time stories to a boy that shouldn’t be. He was soothing a child that wasn’t supposed to be his.

Lex Luthor had always wanted to be a father. He wanted a legacy. He’d imagined them with Lillian in that sacred delicate warmth of their bed and their life. That was not to be.

He filled his life with borrowed sorrow and pulled himself up. He made a son worthy of the fight that would be needed. He built his legacy from the atomic level up. He planned the escape. He planned the way the boy would be lost. He planned for all of that.

But as he never planned for Lillian. He always forgot to plan for love.

Lex Luthor was just a man after all.


End file.
